Under Louisiana law, it is a crime for anyone but a licensed funeral director to sell “funeral merchandise,” which includes caskets. To sell caskets legally, the monks would have to abandon their calling for one full year to apprentice at a licensed funeral home, and convert their monastery into a “funeral establishment” by, among other things, installing equipment for embalming.

The State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors is now going after Saint Joseph Abbey for the “sin” of selling caskets without a government-issued license...

The only reason the state of Louisiana is preventing the Abby from selling its caskets is to protect the profits of the state’s funeral directors. The law is on the books, and the State Board is enforcing it, because licensed funeral directors want the funeral merchandise market to themselves.